Rarely is a series four movies in and still absolutely killing it (no pun intended), but we have somehow been blessed with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. This gift is far more than we sinners deserve at this point. Nia DaCosta takes over the reins from Danny Boyle for the fourth entry, and she and screenwriter Alex Garland have left bloody fingerprints all over a film that made me feel every conceivable emotion in the span of less than two hours. It’s brutally violent in new ways for the franchise, and yet it’s likely to be one of the best times you’ll have at the movies this year. Horror is generally a good bet to watch with a crowd, but The Bone Temple is a rare delight.
Unlike previous films where time passes between movies, this sequel picks up almost immediately after the bonkers ending of Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later. Young Spike (Alfie Williams) is surrounded by the blond-wigged, tracked-suit-wearing cult members named Jimmy who follow Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell). And as crazy as they were when we were introduced to them in the final moments of 28 Years Later, shit gets even wilder. Spike is forced to join the crew to survive, as they torture their way across the English countryside. Meanwhile, over in his ossuary, Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) seems to be reenacting Grizzly Man as he attempts to connect with Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), the hulking, hung alpha from the previous film.
Like its immediate predecessor, The Bone Temple is de-fucking-ranged. A lot of that is due to the time we spend with O’Connell’s Jimmy and his Jimmies, who continue the series’ themes about the survivors being just as monstrous as the infected. However, they somehow manage to up the insanity ante with more religion-fueled violence in this installment, which definitely has no relationship to current reality or any of history. Nope, not one bit. The Jimmies follow Jimmy’s evil orders without a thought, wreaking violence and horror among their fellow humans. While the zombie kills (whether they’re dying or doing the killing themselves) in The Bone Temple are as grisly as we’ve come to expect since the release of 28 Days Later, the human-on-human violence might have reached a new high (or low, depending on your thinking) with this entry in the series. At various points, it gets almost unimaginably grim, but Garland’s script is also laugh-out-loud funny enough to break the tension with the unhinged performance from Sinners star O’Connell providing both unease and humor. You’ll still probably have nightmares, but at least watching it is bearable in the moment.
While Spike and his mum were the heart of 28 Years Later, the soul of its sequel is in Fiennes’s Kelson. His soothing voice is a balm in the movie’s broken world (and in ours), and his tenderness toward those around him made me tear up a few times. 28 Years Later continues the series’ conversation about what makes us human, but it feels even more profound this time around. Yet Fiennes’s scenes don’t just provide the emotional core; he’s also as funny as his best comedic performance in films like In Bruges and The Grand Budapest Hotel. One of his key scenes toward the end is such a banger that our screening erupted in applause, and it’s really the only logical reaction. Fiennes and the filmmakers have constructed such a marvelous character over the course of these two movies, and it’s a singular feat in a genre that generally isn’t as concerned with populating its films with people that feel real. With Kelson, Fiennes brings a sense of humanity to proceedings, but there’s also joy and wonder, two feelings I’m not accustomed to experiencing in a horror movie.
DaCosta showed such promise with the small, gritty drama Little Woods, but she faltered with her subsequent Candyman and The Marvels. Though last year’s Hedda garnered praise, this is the first time she’s made a big movie that rocks even more than her indie debut. It looks just as good as Boyle’s films in the series, but she also masters a tricky tone that goes from bleak to blackly comic and from quiet to rock-concert loud. The Bone Temple could feel like it’s all over the place, but DaCosta makes it seem like we’re exactly where she intends us to be on its broad emotional spectrum at any given moment.
I cannot quite square how much fun this movie is while being so disturbing. The depravity of Sir Jimmy and his cult will linger, but boy, is this just an absolute blast. It’s a crowd pleaser that will absolutely make fans of the original 28 Days Later happy, but it’s also not afraid to do something different. It’s fun and funny and fucked up and basically everything I ever wanted in a horror movie.
A-
